Published Semimonthly By

WATCH TOWER BIBLE & TRACT SOCIETY 117 Adams Street -   - Brooklyn 1, N.Y., U.S A.

Officers

N. H. Knorr, President              Grant Suiter, Secretary

“And all thy children shall be taught of Jehovah; and great shall be the peace of thy children.” - Isaiah 54:13.

THE BIBLE CLEARLY TEACHES

THAT JEHOVAH Is the only true God, from everlasting to everlasting, and is the Maker of heaven and earth and Giver of life to his creatures; that the Word or Logos was the beginning of his creation and his active agent in creating all other things; and that the creature Lucifer rebelled against Jehovah and raised the Issue of His universal sovereignty;

THAT GOD created the earth for man, made perfect man for the earth and placed him upon It; that man yielded to unfaithful Lucifer, or Satan, and willfully disobeyed God’s law and was sentenced to death; that by reason of Adam’s wrong act all men are born sinners and without the right to life;

THAT THE LOGOS was made human as the man Jesus and suffered death in order to produce the ransom or redemptive price for obedient men; that God raised up Christ Jesus divine and exalted him to heaven above every other creature and clothed him with all power and authority as head of God’s new capital organization;

THAT GOD’S CAPITAL ORGANIZATION is a Theocracy called Zion, and that Christ Jesus Is the Chief Officer thereof and is the rightful King of the new world; that the faithful anointed followers of Christ Jesus are Zion’s children, members of Jehovah's organization, and are His witnesses whose duty and privilege it is to testify to Jehovah’s supremacy and declare his purposes toward mankind as expressed In the Bible;

THAT THE OLD WORLD, or Satan’s uninterrupted rule, ended A.D. 1914, and Christ Jesus has been placed by Jehovah upon the throne, has ousted Satan from heaven, and now proceeds to-vindicate His name and establish the “new earth”;

THAT THE RELIEF and blessings of the peoples can come only by Jehovah’s kingdom under Christ, which has begun; that His next great act is to destroy Satan's organization and establish righteousness completely In the earth; and that under the Kingdom the people of good-will surviving Armageddon will carry out the divine mandate to “fill the earth” with righteous offspring, and that the human dead in the graves will be raised to opportunities of life on earth.

ITS MISSION

THIS Journal Is published for the purpose of enabling the people to know Jehovah God and his purposes as expressed in the Bible. It publishes Bible Instruction specifically designed to aid. Jehovah's witnesses and all people of good-will It arranges systematic Bible study for its readers and the Society supplies other literature to aid in such studies. It publishes suitable material for radio broadcasting and for other means of public Instruction in the Scriptures.

It adheres strictly to the Bible as authority for its utterances. It Is entirely free and separate from all religion, parties, sects or other worldly organizations. It is wholly and without reservation for the kingdom of Jehovah God under Christ his beloved King, It is not dogmatic, but invites careful and critical examination of its contents in the light of the Scriptures. It does not indulge in controversy, and its columns are not open to personalities.

Notice to Subscriber: Remittances should be sent to office In your country In compliance with regulations to guarantee safe delivery of money. Remittances are accepted at Brooklyn from countries where no office is located, by international money order only. Subscription rates in different countries are stated below in local currency. Notice of erfnratton (with renewal blank) is sent at least two issues before subscription expires. Change of address when sent to our office may be expected effective within one month. Send your old as well as new address.

Please address the Watch Tower Society tn every case.

Offices                                       Yearly Subscription Bats

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Translations of this Journal appear in many languages.

ALL SINCERE STUDENTS OF THE BIBLE who by reason of infirmity, poverty or adversity are unable to pay the subscription price may have The Watchtower free upon written application to the publishers, made once each year, stating the reason for no requesting It. We art glad to thus aid the needy, but the written application once each year Is required, by the postal regulations.

Printed in the United States of America

Entered at second-class matter at the post office at Brooklyn, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1873.

“GOD’S MINISTERS” TESTIMONY PERIOD

Because the Testimony Period during the month of August is entitled “God’s Ministers”, that does not exclude any of our Watchtower readers. To be one of his ministers does not mean to be an ordained graduate from some sectarian religious theological seminary; it simply means to be one of his servants, spreading the gospel of his King and kingdom. You can be one of such by taking part with all of Jehovah’s witnesses during August in spreading his message by word of mouth and by printed page. The special offer for the month will be the combination of the book “The Kingdom Is at Hand” and the new booklet Permanent Governor of All Nations, on a contribution of 35c. Anyone willing to minister God’s message to the people can easily and quickly learn to present this offer from door to door with success and have the rare joy of singing God’s praises to all nations. Experienced ministers stand ready to help any desiring to start out in this ministry-during August, and your request to us by card will move us to put you in touch with the needed personal help and instructions. All participating in this midsummer Testimony Period should submit their report when August closes.

“WATCHTOWER” STUDIES

Week of September 19: “The Way of Pleasantness and Prosperity,”          _

§ 1-8 inclusive, also “Expanding Your Ministry”, § 1-13 inclusive, The Watchtower August 15, 1948.

Week of September 26: “Expanding Your Ministry,” § 14-33 inclusive, The Watchtower August 15, 1948.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT ASSEMBLIES FOR SEPTEMBER

Splendid success has marked the district assemblies held thus far in North America. The three final ones of the series are just ahead, and announcement is here made of their time and place and convention committee address. All persons of good-will are invited to attend the district assembly serving their area. Please write at once to the Watchtower Convention Committee at the assembly you choose to attend and obtain rooming accommodations.

Des Moines, Iowa: September 3-5, Des Moines Coliseum Convention Committee, 702 W. Third St., Des Moines, Iowa.

Chicago, Illinois: September 10-12,International Amphitheatre, Forty-third & South Halsted Sts.

Convention Committee, 2357 S. Lawndale Ave., Chicago 23, Ill.

Providence, Rhode Island: September 17-19, Rhode Island Auditorium

Convention Committee, 22 Plainfield St., Providence 7, R. I.

USE RENEWAL SUBSCRIPTION BLANK

The renewal blank sent you prior to the expiration of your Watchtower subscription should be filled out and returned to the Brooklyn office or to the Branch office in the country where you reside. Servants in the companies, and individuals, when sending in renewals for The Watchtower, should always use these blanks. By filling in these renewal blanks you are assured of the continuation of your Watchtower from the time of expiration, and with-ontdelay. It will also be a great help if you sign your name uniformly, and note any recent change of address, on the renewal slip.

ANNOUNCING JEHOVAH'S KINGDOM

Vol. LXIX                            August 15, 1948                                 No. 16

THE WAY OF PLEASANTNESS AND PROSPERITY

"Then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.”—Josh. 1:8.

JEHOVAH makes real prosperity sure. To him Psalm 119:165 is addressed: '“Great prosperity have they who love thy law, and no obstacles confront them.” (An Amer. Trans.) To love God’s law, the keeping of which leads to prosperity, we have to know it. The knowledge of his Word containing his law is important to our lasting prosperity and contentment. If we study his Word and its law, from Genesis through to Revelation, and follow his principles of truth and righteousness, then we are bound to have the contentment that comes from prosperity, and all the obstacles that confront us will pass out of the picture in one way or another. The Lord God will help us, and by studying his Word and watching his leadings we shall find the way out. Not that we shall not have problems now and then. We shall. The hardest tasks may arise in our lives, such as problems because of our brethren in the faith being thrown into prison unjustly, or mob action stirred up against us, but if, in the light of God’s Word, we have the proper view of what we are doing we can overcome the obstacles.

• ² We must therefore keep abreast of the revelation of God’s truth. We cannot slow down along the way, saying: “I have read the Bible two or three times, and I have pretty well in mind everything I should have.” No; we are leaky vessels, and we need continual replenishment. Also at his due times God continues to reveal his truth for our benefit. He reveals, because he is the interpreter. We are not the interpreters of his Word, but must keep up with his revelations. He says: “My son, forget not my teaching, but keep my commands in mind; for a long and happy life, with abundant prosperity, will they bring to you.” (Prov. 3:1, An Amer. Trans.) We should never neglect the study of the Scriptures, but keep our minds on the laws of God. By doing so, we are gainers, because this course brings us a long and happy life with abundant prosperity.

• ³ The apostle Paul admonished Timothy to study God’s Word continually. He said: “Attend to your Scripture-reading, your preaching, and your teaching, till I come.” (1 Tim. 4:13, Moffatt) Paul was

• 1. What guarantees real prosperity for us?

• 2, 3. To what good ends should we study God’s Word continually? interested in having Timothy study the Bible and teach God’s Word, because he wanted to see the young man’s progress. He told him: “Let no one slight you because you are a youth, but set the believers an example of speech, behaviour, love, faith, and purity. . . . Attend to these duties, let them absorb you, so that all men may note your progress.” (1 Tim. 4:12,15, Moffatt) The thought is, to set a good example in the congregation of God’s people; and, when others see your progress in the right way, they will imitate you. They will see the advantage of studying and teaching the Bible. They will note your godliness marked with great gain and contentment. By your course of life they will see you are wholly satisfied and contented. That is what Paul wanted to see in the case of Timothy; namely, his progress in the Lord’s work, the expansion of his ministry, and not his just standing still. The Lord God assures us that by not forgetting his teachings our lives will be pleasant. Indeed, the life of the faithful Christian is the most pleasant one, because it satisfies; it is complete.

* An understanding is one of the gains we make by applying the knowledge we receive from God’s Word. We study his Word, we get information and knowledge from it, and we put this to work. Then, because of the Lord’s blessing, we see the results, and thus we get an appreciation and understanding of how God’s laws and instructions operate. The ungodly do not gain such understanding, because they do not study and apply God’s Word. The inspired wise man, writing the Proverbs, says: “Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.” (Prov. 3:13,16,17) We cannot have a long and happy life if we are quarreling and fighting with our fellow Christians, our brethren. When we faithfully walk in the footsteps of Christ and put his teachings in practice, then we shall be at peace with our brethren. Our paths will be peaceful. We shall go in the way that means a pleasant life for

4, How do we gain understanding and a pleasant way of life? each one of us. The person that is not quarreling with another has contentment and peace of mind. He is an enjoyable brother with whom to be associated, and it makes easier our united expansion of God’s work. All those associated together in a company of Christians, all those full-time Kingdom publishers that are sent out in groups into special territories or into foreign lands and who must work together, should get along in peace with their fellow workers. That is the course of contentment. It brings satisfaction.

• ⁵ Paul described to Timothy those craving for controversy. Such would rather fight than be pleasant. There are some who like to wrangle over words. They believe in argumentation rather than in practice. They do not realize that God’s service comes before their fights. There are others who like to slander and find fault and start gossip. None of these are contented; they could not be when following such a course of conduct. Oh, they may point to their record of service in the field as their godliness. But even at that, there is no real, inward gain to such individuals, no real profit to them, because they are not contented.

• ⁶ With all the sound advice available to us in the Lord’s Word, we should try to get His mind on matters. If we do that we can become contented. The Lord does not want us to gossip about our brethren and judge them, but to leave that to his Son, to whom he has committed all judgment. Why should we start judging our brethren? Why start suspicions about them, and create divisions in our ranks? Why not mind our own business and concentrate on preaching the gospel? Why not try to be thoroughly contented, with peace of mind and joy, and with pleasant association with our brethren? Sometimes individuals will imagine to themselves such an important position in life that they feel they can become the judges and find fault with others. Then they cause disturbance in the Christian company, until no one is contented. They really do not gain anything by it, because godliness brings gain to us if it is accompanied by contentment. But there is great gain in coming to a knowledge of the truth and becoming God’s servant and pursuing godliness. Yes, there is great gain in that, if we are contented. But we cannot afford to be faultfinders. If we become such, there will be no contentment. Godliness must stay linked up with contentment if we are going to find some satisfaction in being a witness of Jehovah and in being associated with his Theocratic organization. Our service to God must be connected with peace among ourselves. Otherwise, there will be no happiness so far as we are concerned.

  7. Why should we be content?

  5, 6. Why do some fail to get real gain with their godliness?           8. Why should we engage In the ministry, and who will help us?

  The salvation of the righteous is of Jehovah: he is their stronghold in the time of trouble. And Jehovah helpeth them, and rescueth them: he rescueth them from the wicked, and saveth them, because they have taken refuge in him.

  —Psalm 37:39, 40, A.S.V.

  
  

• ¹ As we serve the Lord we should be content with food and clothing. Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation. The apostle is right when he says: “The love of money is the root of all evil.” (1 Tim. 6:10) It is true, as he says, that through this craving many professed Christians have wandered away and pierced their hearts through with many pangs. But if a Christian has the necessary food and clothing and has the knowledge of God and his purpose, what more should he want? Certainly with food and clothing we should be content. That is all we are promised as God’s servants. We brought nothing into the world when we were born. Why, then, make a fuss about what someone else has? If we can help other people out with food and clothing, that is an aid to them in God’s service. But we should not feel that anybody is obligated to us to feed and clothe us in our need. If they want to help us, that is a good thing if it is with benefit to the Lord’s service. The point is, As long as we have food and clothing we should be content, because, besides such things, we have something far more precious than food and clothing. That is the message of God’s kingdom. The great thing for us in the Lord’s organization is to have a knowledge of his Word and to minister it to others and be content.

• ⁸ The individual that comes to a knowledge of the truth should engage in preaching it, because that will be gain to him in the things of the Lord. He should take advantage of the ministry which is possible for him through possessing the knowledge of God’s kingdom message. Do you want to become a minister? You can. By doing so you will expand your privileges. Jehovah God is keenly interested in having you be his minister and expand your privileges in the ministry. He loves his servants, and we can always depend upon him to help us in every time of need. When we become ministers of the Almighty God we do need all the assistance and instruction we can get from him through his organization to share in the great work of preaching the gospel to all the world for a witness before the end comes at the battle of Armageddon. As a servant of the visible organization of God’s people, the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society is interested in helping you in your ministry, yes, in increasing your privileges in the ministry. The active ministry will prove to you to be the way of pleasantness and prosperity.

IN TRYING to encourage all 'faithful volunteers today in the great work of expanding the worship of God in all the earth, how does the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society deal with us? Note the various ways. Are you a subscriber for The Watchtower or do you get copies of this magazine regularly from a Kingdom publisher on a street corner or one visiting your home on his route with each issue? If so, then the Society helps you by coming directly with the Watchtower magazine twice a month to you. This magazine is published in sixteen languages. Thus, whether the Watchtower reader speaks English or another language, the Society is interested in him. No matter of what tongue its readers be, the Watch Tower organization tries to reach each hungry individual with spiritual “meat in due season”.

’Each month the Society also publishes in many languages a field-service paper entitled “Informant”. If you take up the active ministry of God’s Word, then the Society is interested in having.you get a copy of each release of this Informant. It publishes the magazine Awake! twice each month, with its many features of world-wide interest. This live magazine helps to keep you abreast of the times and supplies material for use in your field service, and in building up talks for delivery at service meetings and at public occasions. So the Society is interested in every individual and his progress in the Lord’s service by coming into your home weekly or monthly with a magazine or an Informant. Yes, it is interested in you personally in that, if you write the Society for information and help, it will come into your home with a letter of reply.

• ³ Furthermore, the Society wants to assist you in increasingly serving Almighty God as his minister, preaching the gospel. Under Society supervision companies of His consecrated people have been organized in thousands of locations all over the earth. The Society shows concern for all the individual members of such companies by appointing the various servants to essential duties of benefit to all. It appoints and finances traveling representatives, to act as “servants to the brethren” and to visit all the companies, also isolated persons. These representatives help in solving local problems, assisting in the general field-service work, and going out with various publishers when calling at the people’s homes. We ask these special servants to take you from door to door and help you by giving you their personal attention as you preach from house to house or make return visits upon the interested or start home book studies with persons for their instruction in the Bible. Not only does the Society have the desire, but it tries to help you through its

1, 2. With what papers does the Society show Interest In ministers? 3. By what appointments does the Society show further interest? representatives in expanding the extent and degree of your Christian ministry. These men call twice a year at each company or unit and spend a week with it. Everyone should take advantage of these visits, by arranging to go from door to door with the servant or to make a back-call on persons that have taken literature. If the servant to the brethren is married and his wife is traveling with him, she, too, is expected to assist in the local activities, and the sisters in the company should avail themselves of her assistance in their field work.

• ⁴ Thus individually and collectively, as company publishers and organized groups, the active ministers of the Lord God receive help from the Society in expanding their ministry. The Society aids each publisher to keep spiritually healthy and up-to-date in the truth by providing its various publications and releases with timely instructions and spiritual food. It arranges for group study of The Watchtower weekly by the company, where you may attend and express yourself in answer to the questions on the week’s lesson. Attendance at these Watchtower studies is very vital to you. True, you read The Watchtower privately, but, when thus reading it by yourself, you do not get out of each paragraph everything that there is in it or that you would like. Reading is a difficulty with many, even with all their schooling. The Watchtower endeavors to express itself in language and phraseology that is understood from one end of the country to the other; but with some persons at a Watchtower study, if there is some local expressing of it in other words, if it is said in the local accent or according to the local dialect, the point is made clear to them. When we hear someone else say or read it with the proper inflection of the voice, it means much more to us.

• ⁵ We urge all servants appointed in each company to attend the Watchtower study and to participate vocally in it. They are the mature ones in the company, the overseers or assistants in various capacities, and they should set the proper example to the other brethren in the company by faithful, regular attendance. If they do so, not only their own personal progress will become manifest, but that of all the company also.

• • Activity or service meetings are advised weekly, or as regularly as possible, for all organized companies of God’s consecrated people. By urging these meetings we want you to know still further of our interest in your expansion of the Christian ministry in your territory.' Such meetings should be well planned, and the local servants as well as the visiting “servant to the brethren” should help in planning good, lively, interesting, practical, profitable pro-4, 5. What special study does it urge, and participation In it?

• 6, 7. What other weekly meetings does it urge, to expand ministry?

grams. We help with suggestions from here, through the Informant or special letters. In addition to the foregoing, the Society aids your expansion work by urging the establishment in each company of the Theocratic Ministry school, to be held weekly, if possible.

’ For the proper course of study in such schools the Society has provided the excellent publications Theocratic Aid to Kingdom Publishers and "Equipped for Every Good Work", and it issues a regular schedule for the conducting of such ministerial schools uniformly throughout the land by all companies. These are for the benefit of your growing company. Not only are the one-hour school sessions interesting in themselves, but they help all in attendance to learn how to deliver public discourses, or to carry on good conversations in the truth on returnvisits, or to present effective testimonies to the people as we bear, witness from door to door. As we continue these schools, the “other sheep” that are coming into the organization from time to time can take advantage of this grand provision for ministerial training. We do not want them to be without the good things provided for us. It is because you individually exert yourself to expand your ministry that these “other sheep” are coming to associate with your local company or unit.

⁸ Another thing: There are isolated, unattended territories in many counties, states, provinces and lands. To the extent possible, the Society gives attention to these by sending in pioneer publishers. Occasionally they are sent to organized companies in order to help in some service in their expansion activity. Realizing the commission from the Lord Jesus to go and make disciples of all nations, the Society interests itself in expanding the Christian ministry to every country in the world. To that end it establishes Branch offices or supply depots wherever the territory warrants it. It obtains property for Branch offices and puts trained men in the offices to look after Kingdom interests in that territory.

* For the training of special representative servants and missionaries, the Society, in the very midst of World War II, opened up an educational institution, the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead, in upstate New York. Among others, active servants are brought from Branch offices to this school and put through it as well as through a practical training process at the Society’s headquarters in Brooklyn, N.Y. Then it sends them back better qualified and more efficient to the Branches. It has opened up many missionary homes in many lands, and to these it has already sent more than six hundred missionaries graduated from the School of Gilead. This discloses the Society’s world-wide outlook, an interest

8, 9. How does the Society show a world-wide outlook on the work? in global expansion; and to carry on the expansion on such a broad scale the Watch Tower literature is published in 89 languages at present. All the money that is voluntarily contributed to it the Society uses in this expansion program, seeking to render a faithful account to the Lord for the discreet and effective use of all such finances.

“YE ARE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD”

• ¹⁰ Each individual publisher, in every land, has an active part in this world-wide expansion. It all devolves upon the publishers, those who tell the truth out to others. Each individual, no matter how isolated, each organized group, no matter how small, must make a contribution of service if there is to be further growth on all fronts. Each must constantly sustain his part of the work in his territory. All together, the publishers constitute the “light of the world”. (Matt. 5:14) If it were not for them, no light of truth about Jehovah’s kingdom by Christ Jesus would be going out into the world today, and it would be necessary for ‘the stones to cry out’. Because we as individuals are letting the light shine, the people in our neighborhood, yes, right next door to us, are learning or being given the opportunity to learn the life-giving truth. We let the light shine on the street where we live, in the city in which we reside, in the territory circuit within the boundaries of which our groups of companies are located. We are letting the light' shine in the country in which we are citizens; and just as the apostle Paul used his Roman citizenship for the advancement of the gospel message, so do we today.

• ¹¹ But the field of gospel-preaching extends beyond our own land. “The field is the world,” Jesus said; and all of us throughout the habitable earth, by unitedly sounding out the one Kingdom message and mutually supporting one another, are covering the entire field of the world with the gospel of salvation. Each publisher shining locally, when combined with all his fellow publishers throughout the earth, creates a great blaze of light that is penetrating in every direction and serving notice upon all nations and peoples that God has set up his promised kingdom by Christ and that the new world of righteousness governed by that kingdom is at hand. In consequence of all this expansion activity the great sign proving the end of this world is being fulfilled, namely, “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”—Matt. 24:14.

• ¹⁸ Thus it is apparent that, particularly since the close of World War I in 1918, Jehovah God has been organizing his consecrated people in all the earth for the ministry of the glad tidings of the Kingdom. He 10, 11. Who are now the "light of the world”? and how?

• 12. For what has God organized his people since 1914, and why?

August 15, 1948 established this kingdom of the new world with Christ Jesus in the heavens A.D. 1914. The "seven times” allotted to Satan the Devil for uninterrupted Gentile domination of the earth ended that year, according to Bible calculations. There is, therefore, no occupation or profession of more importance today than this Christian ministry of the Kingdom message. And you do not have to graduate from a secular university or college and then attend a theological school for several years and finally be ordained by a body of religious clergymen and priests in order to be such genuine ministers. Jehovah God has made the provisions for your training and share in the glorious ministry as described in the foregoing paragraphs, and the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society stands at your disposal to help you with its world-wide organization.

• ¹³ Do not be afraid. The only question is, Are you willing? We cannot make our secular work, or our social position in life, or the personal, selfish things we have to do or like to do more important than the things God has for us to do, if we are seeking eternal life in the new world. Sometimes creatures weigh matters as to whether to serve God and to do the active preaching of the gospel. But why should we weigh matters when it comes to serving the Lord God? Is it not the right thing to do? Is it not what his Word instructs us to do if we want life through his Son Christ Jesus? Is it not the example that this Son set for us, which example he set for us to follow as a sure guide to everlasting gain ? He said: “Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.” Do we also come to God for the same purpose? If we follow in Jesus’ footsteps, then we should be willing to do the things he did when on earth; and his chief work was bearing witness and preaching the gospel. He was a minister of God. When Isaiah had a vision of the Lord God at the temple and the question rang out, ‘‘Whom shall I send? and who will go for us?” he promptly responded, “Here am I; send me.” The Lord accepted him and sent him, and the grand book of the prophecy of Isaiah is one of the results. The like question comes to us today. Having the light of the truth and getting an appreciation of the opportunity of becoming a real minister and expanding our privileges of serving God, are we now just as ready as Isaiah to answer the question and say, “Here am I; send me”? If we are anxious to follow Christ’s steps, we will do so. If we do, we shall gain unspeakable blessings, and these without end. —Isaiah, chapter 6.

MODERN BURDENS

“ Confronted with the opportunity of such a ministry, let us not be anxious about food, clothing

• 13. How did Jesus and Isaiah illustrate for us willingness?

• 14. How has modern civilisation created burdens for us? and shelter. Jesus did not make these -the deciding factors in his life. He was content as long as he had some food and clothing, although, as he tells us, “the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” (Matt. 8: 20) The conditions in his day were not far unlike those today in these respects, except as to style. In parts of America and elsewhere people live considerably better than the majority of mankind throughout the earth. In India, Africa, Asia, and sections of Europe, the customs have changed very little since the time of Christ. Our conditions of life have become great burdens, because we have some features they did not have in Jesus’ day. With our houses, our heating systems, our large wardrobes, etc., we find ourselves burdened. When one female finds out that some other female of the community has gotten a new coat or hat, she, too, has to get one to keep up with the style. Things like these are actually burdens falling upon us because we live in this modern civilization. Here in the Occident during 1948 the feminine population are supposed to have the “new look”. In India, Africa, and elsewhere, they do not have the new look. They have one look, the old look.

• ¹⁵ Truly, because of our "civilization” we have brought upon ourselves heavy burdens in the way of clothing, food, housing, automobiles, etc. These things require money, and trying to get them leads to love of money. Thousands of our Christian brethren in other countries have really an advantage in not having all the worries we have assumed. We are worried about our meals. If we have the same meat twice in a day, we think we are not being fed properly. We are used to having every meal changed. But if we go to Africa and live with the natives, as our missionaries ofttimes have to do, we shall have the same thing seven days a week. For instance, they will take some roots of trees and pound them into flour, sift it, and pour in boiling water, roll it into balls, and pop it into their mouths. If they want fruit, they can go to the country and get bananas and other fruit. They take several yards of cloth and wind it around themselves and, lo, they are dressed. In Germany the end of World War II saw the release of Jehovah’s witnesses from the concentration camps, underground dens and prisons into which the Hitler Nazi regime had forced them. To this day innumerable homes of the people are just shells. But Jehovah’s witnesses in that war-battered country are not worried particularly about building homes. Nor are they worried about clothing. They could not get it if they did worry. Food is not too great a worry. They put forth efforts to get what food and clothing they need, but their foremost concern is preaching the gospel. In Germany there are

• 15. How do brethren in other lands show freedom from such worries? in this third postwar year more than 32,064 active Kingdom publishers reporting, to compare with 16,077 a year ago.

• ¹⁶ Even we who live in more favored spots might be able to take care of modern problems of civilization more simply than we do, if it were not for the selfishness of fallen man. With less attention to the selfish things of life, the consecrated natives who devote themselves to publishing the message of God’s kingdom in Africa run up averages of 25 or 26 or 27 hours a month preaching the Kingdom by word of mouth and distribution of literature. They do not have automobiles to take them to their territory assignments for gospel-preaching among the people. They do not even have shoes. Yet they make their calls upon the people and proclaim God’s message. Those conditions are similar to what Jesus had in his day. So, as long as we have food, clothing and shelter, we can be happy. We should be content, as the apostle Paul tells us to be. (1 Tim. 6:8) It is plain why the native Christian of Africa is content with his meal of fu-fu and his several yards of cloth for dress. He does not have the problems and big worries we assume and carry on our shoulders. He shows us we should not take these things so seriously. Jesus said: “Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”—Matt. 6: 31-33.

¹⁷ As to getting out among people and presenting the glad tidings of the new world of righteousness, there is basically little difference between the method of Jesus’ day and ours. His was a direct communication with individuals, getting in personal touch with the people. So is ours. The results are the same. He went about preaching for about three and a half years, personally. He told some persons he cured to relate to others the good things the Lord God had done to them, and he also sent out his twelve apostles and seventy evangelists. They preached the gospel. What were the results? On the day of Pentecost following Jesus’ ascension to heaven there was, to begin with, a congregation of about 120 souls in Jerusalem. Then the holy spirit descended upon them, and they preached in many languages to the great throng that gathered at the miraculous event. On that day of preaching by word of mouth there were 3,000 that were added, submitting to baptism in. confession of their faith in Jesus Christ as the Messiah. These, too, must have taken up the preach-

• 16. What shows we should give less attention to selfish things?

• 17, 18. How are the working methods and the results in the days of Jesus and the apostles similar to those of us today? ing work, for the record, at Acts 2:46, 47, says: “And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.”

¹⁸ Today Jehovah’s witnesses go about preaching in the same manner as Jesus and his disciples. The result? We see some hearers of good-will coming into association with Jehovah’s Theocratic organization, and this is because of expanding the ministry of His Word in all lands. Let us not forget, this is not educating people merely for a way of life now. It is a life-saving work, helping people of good-will into God’s way of salvation that conducts them to a happy, everlasting future in the new world. Is any work more salutary, more productive of lasting good, more beneficial to the people and more pleasing to God and his Christ, than this? Do you not want a share in it while it lasts ? It means your own salvation as well as that of those whom you assist into the truth.—1 Tim. 4:16.            ’

ALL CLASSES OF PEOPLE USABLE

¹⁸ There is, then, every reason to keep your interest in the ministry high, realizing that it is not the job exclusively of men who parade around in ecclesiastical skirts, in frock coats, collars and vests buttoned at the hinder side, and always presenting a mournfully black sight. Jesus’ disciples were of the common, everyday people without college or seminarial education, and he taught them to preach, and to preach what really led to the salvation of the people. Today the Watch Tower Society is teaching all who want to serve the interests of God’s kingdom, regardless of the walks of life from which they come. It is using a number of agencies in order to help them into the ministry, namely, The Watchtower, the local Theocratic Ministry schools, regular Bible studies and practical service meetings at company meetingplaces, the appointment of many servants, local and traveling, and many other means.

¹⁹ The Society is helping these thousands upon thousands of consecrated people of God to make the Christian ministry their real life’s vocation. Then their secular businesses and activities that they have to carry on become merely the secondary operation of their life, just as the apostle Paul made tentmaking secondary to preaching as an ambassador of God’s kingdom. If we appreciate God’s kingdom as the most important thing in the universe, how could we make being its ambassador and proclaimer secondary to our less important, selfish, personal occupations for material gain? If we have expanded 19, 20. Who may become ministers, and how Important la being one? our view on the importance of the Kingdom and of the exalted privilege of serving it, we can not do so.

• ²⁹ All over the earth Almighty God has organized his people for the ministry. Those already engaged in it are encouraging and helping others into it, because to confess God and Christ by sharing in the ministry means life to the minister and his hearers. “For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” (Rom. 10:10) Because of certain inescapable responsibilities, not all those who enter the ministry and make it their chief concern can put in 15 or 20 or 30 hours a month in direct field activity. God through Christ sends those consecrated to him into the field as His witnesses to the extent of their ability and circumstances. If you have made a consecration to obey the Lord God with Christlike obedience, then you can not sidestep it: you are sent to do the Lord’s witness work, and you should prepare and equip yourself to go.

• ²² If you attach to it the importance that God’s kingdom imparts to it, then you will not be content to do just as little as you can in this service. You will rather seek to enlarge your direct share in it. If you are putting in two or three hours a month, possibly you can so arrange your personal affairs that your privileges of field ministry will be greater, in connection with your local company of Jehovah’s witnesses. There is an added privilege of service by being a “pioneer”. As such, you are in full-time service to the extent of putting in 120 hours a month directly in the field, witnessing by word of mouth, distributing literature from house to house or at magazine posts, revisiting the people getting the literature, and promoting home Bible study or even conducting such studies with persons willing to learn. Taking part in the pioneer work may open up the way for you to attend the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead with free tuition. Knowing we are sent of God, can we not feel, too, that he is sending us to do pioneer service? Is it not possible for more Watchtower readers to engage in this blessed pioneer service? We are interested, not merely in the expanding of organized companies, circuits, districts, and countries, but also in each person’s larger share in the grandest, most important and most profitable service on the earth. Profitable, gainful, remunerative? Yes, not as respects personal material gain to ourselves, but in terms of the heart satisfaction and peace of mind accruing to us from this godly activity now, besides the invigorating hope of a prosperous eternity in God’s new world.

• ²³ So, if we want to get into the ministry or want to expand our ministerial activity, why not give the

• 21. Why should we engage in the ministry, and to what extent?

• 22. What suggestions to expand our ministry are put to us? and why? 23, 24. How should number of publishers compare with population? matter of pioneer service very careful consideration, making your life’s work the full-time preaching of God’s kingdom now here? That more publishers are needed in the pioneer ranks hardly needs demonstration. We have made it known as our objective to have at least one-tenth of all the present active Kingdom publishers enlisted in the pioneer division. Even now in a number of parts of the earth we find approximately one Kingdom publisher reporting for each 1,000 of the national population. According to the news release of March 10, 1948, by the United States Census Bureau the nation’s population reached a new high of 145,340,000 at the start of this year. If, now, we had one Kingdom publisher reporting for every 1,000 persons in these United States, we should have to show about 145,000 publishers. If a tenth of these became pioneers it would mean 14,500 pioneers. If we were to have one Kingdom publisher to every thousand of the whole world’s population, it would call for 2,000,000 publishers. We have far to go to meet this figure.

• ²⁹ The 1948 Yearbook disclosed there were 187,000 publishers reporting field service throughout the earth in 1947. Ten percent of this would mean 18,700 pioneers in all the earth. Actually the average for the globe was 7,017. With earth’s two billion population, think what would happen or could be done if we had those 18,700 pioneers. Other countries where they have the ten-percent figure show that if each of us were to care for a thousand individuals in our personal territory, the field would not be overcrowded, it running that average already in Cuba, Canada, and Denmark. As we survey the field, the world, and perceive the vast untouched portions, we can see it constitutes a call to every Watchtower reader to take up the ministry, to expand the number of heralds of God’s kingdom, and thus to try to meet the world’s need.

• ²⁵ Could we reflect on Paul’s advice to Timothy from a practical viewpoint? He speaks to Timothy as a minister, and Timothy was just a young man whom he picked up in the course of his missionary work in the small city of Lystra, in Asia Minor. Through Timothy he speaks to everyone interested in the ministry and reminds us that there is great gain in godliness with contentment. We brought nothing into the world, but came in without a stitch of clothing. We can take nothing out of the world. We should not be going after money, for the love of this is the root of all evil. (1 Tim. 6: 6-10) Now at this end of the world, when it will go out of existence and be able to take nothing out except the lives that it has wrecked and ruined, are we interested in things we shall not be able to take out? Are we in our daily lives just intent on keeping up a big home, 25, 26. By contentment with necessary things, what could we do? or the easy comforts of life, and are we slaving away much of our time and energy in trying to hold on to the present position we hold! Or could we be more content with less, with just necessary things, and by such contentment spare ourselves to enlarge our ministerial efforts! Could we arrange our affairs now, forgetting about wealth and things of the world without which we can get along! Could we thereby devote more talent and endeavor to God’s work which leads to eternal gain! Could we arrange to enlist as pioneers! Would we not be really more content if we were actually in such full-time service!

• ²⁶ How many of you Watchtower readers ever said, "I wish I could be a pioneer like these about whose experiences I read!” Not at our invitation, but at the Lord’s invitation and the challenge of the world’s end, why not quit wishing, and be one! Of course, not everyone of us can do so, because of binding obligations. So, if you can, how privileged you ought to consider yourself to be!

FOR OUR AND OTHERS’ SALVATION

" Expansion of our individual ministry is very important for our own lives now and forever. First of all, it helps us personally in rendering direct worship of the living and true God to a greater extent, and that means an enrichment of our lives_r. Secondly, it affords us greater opportunity to help people of good-will to gain a knowledge of the lifegiving truth. That helps them to answer the grand call to this blessed gospel ministry. We should be concerned not only in expanding our own privileges in this matter, but also in helping others to get into the work which God now commands his consecrated people to do for the vindication of his name. It is not the contribution of money that does this, but is chiefly the contribution of ourselves, the giving of our personal attention and aid to those who hunger and thirst after righteousness and life.

• ²⁸ There is no end of work before Armageddon is fought. Jesus said this gospel shall be preached to all the nations for a witness, not for world conversion, and then the end will come. While we could never accomplish world conversion, we can try with our comparatively few workers to give a big witness to all nations by preaching as energetically as we can, by all means of publicity, until Jehovah shuts down the international work by signaling to Christ Jesus to begin the fight of Armageddon and wipe out the enemy nations. Let us strive to expand our personal accomplishments in the divine service. Let us help the “other sheep” to do the same, especially to get started in it. Invite them to read The Watchtower, to attend the public meetings, the studies and service meetings and Theocratic Ministry school sessions

27, 28. Besides expanding our own ministry, what else should we do? in the company’s Kingdom Hall. Invite them to go with you into the field witnessing as your companions. Let them taste the good things you already enjoy as you widen the sphere of your service. The results will be, probably not astonishing, but at least gratifying as the weeks, months and years hasten along toward Armageddon. We do not know how long it will be till then. We are not worried. If we have the truth in our hearts and are privileged' to confess it with our mouths to others, we can be content. With this we are satisfied, we are pleased, we are at peace. What more could a creature now on earth in this old world ask for!

IN DEFIANCE OF THE WORLD

” The more active we are about our heavenly Father’s business, the more we can expect the world to frown and oppose. But why let that dishearten us! There is no use in trying to get on the favorable side with this world. We cannot please it and our God at the same time. So we should never be fearful about speaking the truth, but should present it whether in season or out of season to ourselves. Remember that, though Jehovah God sent Christ Jesus into the world with all the signs and miracles to show for it, they did not believe this Perfect One. This great Minister of God told us that the world will not believe us either. The thought of that should not cause us to slack our hand, but should nerve us to face an unappreciative world and to seek the Lord’s “other sheep” and to appreciate all the more whatever of them we do find by proclaiming the Kingdom news. Press on, then; in your individual expansion work, because if we all do so together, then there will be tremendous expansion results on the part of the organization as a whole.

• ¹⁹ It will be impossible to please the religionists, the commercial men and the political rulers of this world and also find favor with God. They will always find fault with you and put you in the unpopular class. For example, in Rumania, before World War II and Hitler’s taking over the country, Jehovah’s witnesses were classed as “Communists” and they were persecuted and killed because they were not Hitlerites, Fascists, and Axis supporters. Now the Communists have taken control of Rumania, but Jehovah’s witnesses keep on in preaching the same message now as they did then, preaching God’s kingdom as the only hope of mankind. Before the war the Rumanian clergy played up to the Nazis, but now, to please the people in power, they are playing up to the Communists. These clergymen who have changed their tune and their tactics also .change their charges against Jehovah’s witnesses. Now they say we are “imperialists” and that they must stop the witness

• 29. Why is it useless to try getting into favor with the world?

• 30, 31. How may we draw on Bumania for an illustration and example? work and get us out of the country. The same organization that such religionists a short time ago called “Communist” they now call “imperialist”. The sole reason for this ecclesiastical somersault is, in every case, to make Jehovah’s witnesses unpopular and to set them up as a target of attack because we show up the hypocrisy and the lack of Christianity of the religious clergy. Does that slow down the efforts at expansion of Jehovah’s work in Rumania? No. The people of good-will in that eastern European country still want to hear the message of truth, and they are hearing it under great obstacles.

• ³¹ We know our brethren there have an understanding of the truth. They have the Theocratic Ministry school as we do in countries outside of the Soviet sphere of influence. They also have the weekly Watchtower study and service meeting. They are pushing the work and, by God’s grace, are succeeding in helping the people with His message. Even though the enemy kill some of them, they. will not stop preaching the Kingdom gospel. They are God’s ministers. They know they are sent by Him to preach, the same as our active Watchtower readers in other lands are sent to preach, yes, the same as the Son of God was sent to earth to preach The course of the Rumanian brethren furnishes us just another concrete example that if we can appreciate we are commissioned and dispatched by God to do this work we will follow his instructions and Word. Realizing we are sent and also being willing and joyfully volunteering to be sent, we will put forth every effort to expand our service privileges, now more so than ever before because the time remaining is so short.

• ³³ Are we following Christ’s footsteps? Then we shall want to do the heavenly Father’s will as he did. When we find out what the divine will is we will press on in the service he assigns to us, so as to show him our obedience to his will. We cannot give him too much direct worship in this world. His worship is to our advantage. The more we properly worship him according to truth and with the help of his spirit, the more our interest grows in vindicating his universal sovereignty, name and Word. The more, too, we are training our minds in the right

• 32. How does expanding our ministry affect our expression of love? direction. As we expand our ministry we find our love for our neighbors deepening, for more of them; yes, not merely for the brother or the sister whom we know and with whom we work in the local company organization or in the pioneer group, or missionary home, or Branch office, but for all the other strayed and lost “sheep” that Christ Jesus the Good JShepherd says he-will gather and bring safely into the fold before Armageddon. By expanding our ministry we get in touch with more of such “other sheep”, we gain many more friends, Christian brethren, people for whom we can show love, people we can help and train in God’s true worship in which we are already engaged. Ah, yes, we can help these dear ones to gain life, getting into the same righteous way into which we have been brought through Christ’s ransom sacrifice and through the Christian ministry of some other faithful servants of God. Can the acquiring of uncertain material riches compare with the reward attending our efforts at gathering together the Lord’s “other sheep”? No, indeed 1

• ³³ The ministry of preaching the Kingdom gospel for the gathering of the Lord’s “sheep” was foretold. It is now in progress. In no great while it will be accomplished and will be history in vindication of God’s name and Word. Our greatest privilege in these pre-Armageddon days is to avail ourselves of the opportunity and to enter into it with heart and soul. So, enter it and stay with it we will, and that with contentment. We will serve and abide with our brethren in peace, yes, with the “other sheep”. We will not be drawn into strife and let ourselves be provoked to it. Away with all discontent and faultfinding! We will make the best of situations and give ourselves unselfishly to improving things for the sake of the work and the spiritual welfare of our fellow servants of God. We will enjoy to the full all our privileges as they come to us, responding to the call to action the way Christ Jesus our Leader did. Being sent by the Supreme Power and Authority, we will preach his message that those who believe may be saved. Appreciating that we are sent as his servants and that he is with us till his “strange work” is finished, we are bound to expand our ministry.

• 33. How will we now conduct ourselves In the ministry, and why?

UPLIFTING MANKIND TO PERFECTION

IS MANKIND, without superhuman aid, able to bring itself back into harmony with the Creator, the God of all the universe? Mankind’s history for the past six thousand years, culminating in the condition in which it is found today, answers, No. It is well that we have the plain, blunt answer. Then we can appreciate all the more the one effective means for uplifting mankind to the perfection in which it will be a glory and praise to the Creator.

We must bear in mind that for about sixty centuries the human race has been traveling the broad road of unrighteousness that has led it to its present degradation and now to the brink of destruction at the battle of Armageddon. After such a long journey in sin and debauchery the race is today most wicked and depraved. Visit the New York city slums or those of any other great city and gather some idea of the vice, immorality, corruption, juvenile delinquency and wickedness practiced in those places. Take a look at the filth, muck and poverty-stricken conditions.

Shudder as you look at those afflicted with loathsome disease, the mentally weak, the wretched, the crippled, the lame, the blind, all herded together in small, poorly ventilated hovels, and no proper clothing and food. Uplift for the mind and body they have none. Many of them have likely reached the state of total depravity. Certainly it is a time of woe for the earth and its inhabitants, for the Devil has come down unto them and wrought his work with a vengeance.

Do not quit just yet, but come along to the insane asylums, and gaze horror-smitten at the hundreds of thousands whose minds are turned entirely into the ways of unreasonableness and nervous distraction and prostration, and inability to grasp any truth. And ponder at the same time the ominous reports of bad management of these institutions and brutal treatment of these poor victims of conditions which the minds of increasing numbers of people can endure no longer. From these mental hospitals go to the other hospitals and look with pitying eyes upon the bedridden, the maimed, the pain-racked, and the moaning sick and dying. What a wreck sin and its author, Satan the Devil, has made of this race of ours!

Do not stop here, but now go to those who are moral wrecks and addicts of crime. Yes, go into the jails, prisons and penitentiaries and look through the bars at the marks of crime upon the faces of the men and women and youths behind, dragging out a weary and depressing existence in such places of confinement, like animals in cages. Since we are out to see it all, at its worst, let us not shrink from the “red light districts”, but let us peer into the; brothels and houses,of ill fame. Those girls there, whose beauty of face and form is now corroding away, have been turned into female demons by reason of evil practices which forced many of them unwillingly into this kind of life. Do not overlook, too, those men burning with passion that regularly patronize these places, contaminating and being contaminated with gruesome diseases that modern science is trying to eliminate. What a modern Sodom and Gomorrah!

For a contrast, first pay a visit to the highly respected financial centers and view the hard, merciless, greedy countenances of the money gamblers and profiteers who do not stop at war to force millions of youths into the muddy, vermin-ridden, blood-soaked trenches or foxholes, there to kill and be killed; financiers who take advantage of every favorable turn of the market to make gain and satisfy their conscienceless love of money. Turn away from them and look down into the dark coalpits and salt pits and other mining projects and behold the poor, miserable creatures, toiling amid dampness, darkness, and dangers to limb and life, for a pittance to support themselves and families, while those barons of wealth roll in wealth and material splendor, at ease. Go, too, the rounds of the sweatshops, where poor widows, friendless girls and poverty-driven men labor under cramped, unsanitary conditions, to eke out some kind of existence. And then on your way from all this sightseeing in the Devil’s world, worm your way through the crowded streets and press into the subways, the excursion boats, the restaurants and the soup joints, the jazzy dance halls, and other such places and take note of the modern boys and girls, the old men and women, pleasure-mad, slaves to nicotine and drugs, breeding vice and crime. These are all samples of what Satan the Devil, “the god of this world,” has to show for his wicked rule over humankind.

We read; “He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.” (1 John 3:8) At his first manifestation of the Son of God on earth he suffered death, but, thank God! was resurrected to life in glory in the heavens. But his death and resurrection alone will not undo all the evils described above. Armageddon’s overthrow of Satan’s world organization and the restraining of Satan and all his demons and human servants will not relieve humankind from their miserable downfallen condition. There is something else that must be done. It will be done, and that by the establishment of Christ’s kingdom of a thousand years for mankind’s uplift to perfection. There will be a restitution of God’s kingdom with a righteous invisible overlord over mankind; and of this we read: “He shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.” (Acts 3:19-21) For this reason men should repent and turn to God.

Satan’s misrule of six thousand years has wrought all the evils among humankind. Now God will demonstrate to all his intelligent creatures that one thousand years of rule by his beloved Son, Jesus Christ the righteous One, can and will undo all the evil that has been done, and will uplift all the willing and obedient ones on earth to the full glory and beauty of perfect humanity. This blessed and glorious work will make an everlasting name for Jehovah in the minds of all, and they will- forever honor it. The sacred Bible shows that this uplift work will embrace the first one thousand years of the new world, the “new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness”. “Millennium” means one thousand years, and so this reign of Jesus Christ is called “the Millennium”. During that time the entire human race will be under his control, and he will lead all the obedient ones among men back into harmony with Jehovah God. Satan the Devil will be bound so that he cannot hinder this uplift work in the slightest. His ousting from power in the earth will be completely effected by the battle of Armageddon now near in which the new world’s King, Christ Jesus, will vanquish all the organization of wickedness, demonic and human. Multitudes of persons of goodwill today living upon earth are now taking their stand for God’s kingdom and will see this destruction of Satan’s organization at Armageddon and will sing the praises of God and his triumphant King after the battle is over and peace has come to this earth to stay.

RESURRECTION TO OPPORTUNITIES FOR LIFE

These- good-will survivors of the battle of Armageddon are included in the words of the apostle Paul to Timothy telling him to preach this good news to mankind, saying: “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick [that is, the living] and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; preach the word.” (2 Tim. 4:1, 2) Particularly since A.D. 1918, at which time the Scriptures show the King came to the temple for judgment proceedings, the nations of this world have been under judgment, and these people of good-will have turned away from the worldly way of the nations and have repented and dedicated themselves to God’s kingdom of the new world. Therefore the King and Judge at the temple judges them to be worthy to be preserved from destruction with the nations at Armageddon and to be carried alive, “quick,” into the glorious new world after that battle. So the thousand years'of the judgment day of mankind in general begins favorably for them. They will enjoy many earthly blessings before the general resurrection of mankind in the graves begins.

The Bible’s comforting teaching concerning the resurrection of the dead has long been hid from the minds of people inside and outside of Christendom, and this has been accomplished by Satan’s use of his earthly representatives, the religious clergy, to teach unscriptural pagan doctrines. These false prophets, claiming authority to teach the Bible, have caused people to believe every man has an immortal soul and that what is called death is not really death because the human soul is deathless; and so the person supposed to be dead has merely had a change and has passed on into another realm of life, either heaven, or a terrifying purgatory, or a hopeless hell of torment unending. If the dead are thus not nonexistent, but consciously alive somewhere, what need is there of resurrection?

The truth is that every human creature is a soul; no man has a soul that can exist independently of his fleshly body. Genesis 2: 7 declares plainly that God formed man of the dust of the earth, breathed into¹ man’s nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. That means, man became a living, moving, breathing, sentient creature. Mankind’s first parents sinned, but they did not thereby bring upon themselves and us their descendants a hell of conscious torment for our souls after death. In the law of God it is written in Roman Catholic and other editions of the Bible: “The soul that sinneth, the same shall die.” (Ezech. 18: 4, 20, Douay) If the human soul were immortal it could not die. No souls at death can go or do go to a “purgatory” or a hell of eternal fiery torment. Psalm 89:48 says: “What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave?” No; but when a man dies he is as dead as any brute beast, a lion or a dog. You can read that for yourselves at Ecclesiastes 3:19-21 and 9:5, 10 and Psalm 115:17. The man remains thus until the resurrection.

We do not have to tell you that these religious clergymen have induced millions of people in Christendom to believe that at death the church members go to purgatory, if not directly to heaven, and there they suffer purgation until they are relieved at the instance of religious priests, who pray for them and accept money considerations for such prayers. They also teach that the wicked die aiid go to the lowest hell, and that depth of hell is a place of eternal torture. To the contrary of this, God’s Word teaches that Hades, hell or the inferno is the tomb, the condition of the dead; and that all who die within the bounds of God’s grace through Christ go there with a possibility of a resurrection from the dead. The purgatory doctrine is purely an invention of demon-controlled religious leaders. There is no such place or condition where men are suffering torments after death and from which they can be relieved by clerical prayers with or without money consideration.

Concerning Jesus it is written: “For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” (Psalm 16:10) The apostle Peter said that meant Jesus Christ, at Acts 2:27-32. Jesus did not suffer torment in hell, and he did not stay there forever, but was resurrected from hell the third day. This is of itself conclusive proof that the Bible Hades, hell or inferno is not a place of eternal torment. There is no doctrine that is more clearly taught in the Bible than that of the resurrection of the dead. But if the human soul were immortal or deathless, then there could be no resurrection from the dead; and if the souls of men were in torment that was decreed to be eternal, they could not be brought out for all eternity.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a guarantee that the dead will be resurrected. The argument of the apostle Paul concerning the body of Christ’s footstep followers is that Christ Jesus was raised from the dead, and that if he was not raised, then there is no resurrection of any dead, not even of Christians. In other words, the resurrection of Christ Jesus is proof that the other dead will be raised. “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order; Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.”—1 Cor. 15: 20-23.

That even the un-Christian dead are to be resurrected we have inspired Scripture. The apostle Paul said: “There shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust.” (Acts 24:15) In discussing the judgment day Jesus said concerning the dead: “Marvel not at this: for the hour cometh, in which all that are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection by judgment.” (John 5: 28, 29, Am. Stan. Ver.) The word in Greek here translated “tombs” means “memorial” and implies the memory of God. Therefore these words of Jesus are proof conclusive that God holds in his memory all those who have died, except those who have been willfully wicked, such as Judas, or those who are beyond correction and uplift; and that in His due time, through Christ Jesus, he will bring them back out of death by the resurrection. “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.”—1 Thess. 4:14.

When will the general awakening of the dead begin after the battle of Armageddon? The Scriptures do not disclose the day, but indicate it will be after the new organization in the earth has been built by the resurrection of the faithful men of old to be “princes in all the earth” and after the surviving multitude of persons of good-will have had an opportunity to do their part with these princes in spreading righteousness throughout all the earth and cultivating and caring for the earth according to the will of God, toward its beautification to a paradise condition. Revelation, chapter 20, describes the general resurrection of mankind

THE WATCHTOWER,

to life on this earth. (Rev. 20:11-15) During the millennial reign of Christ all human creatures on earth may enjoy the Kingdom blessings and experience its uplifting powers by obediently co-operating with it and serving God and Christ his King. Attaining to human perfection by the end of the thousand years, all those who hold fast to it by integrity to God during the loosing of Satan the Devil for a short season will be justified to eternal life in human perfection upon the paradisaic earth. All the disobedient and rebellious will be destroyed. The kingdom of God by Christ Jesus is mankind’s only hope today for everlasting uplift.

HEZEKIAH TRUSTS JEHOVAH

HEZEKIAH finishes his study of a part of Jehovah’s law from the roll that he had his scribe copy for him thirteen years before, in the very first year of his reign (745 B.C.). It makes him think of the roll from which his faithful grandfather, King Jotham, used to instruct him. Though he has missed discussing God’s righteous doings with his grandfather since he died, 27 years before, during all those years he has had the joy and privilege of associating with God’s prophets Isaiah and Micah, and the rest of Jehovah’s faithful worshipers in all Judah and beyond, whether Israelites or proselytes.—2 Ki. 16:20; 18:1-3, 13; Isa. 26:1; 2 Chron. 28: 27; 29: 1; 32:1.

Spiritually refreshed, he goes for his morning meal. A panting messenger meets him with the news that the Assyrian emperor Sennacherib has crossed the Euphrates river up north and is marching south. Up in the cool Lebanon mountains he has already burned down the summer house of the king of Tyre, who with his family has fled to Cyprus. Sennacherib is overthrowing his strongholds, the places of his. food and drink and the forts in which he trusted, and they are submitting to him.

King Hezekiah immediately commands that his princes and his mighty men be assembled that he may confer with them. As he awaits their arrival in the council hall he reviews in his mind Jehovah’s mighty acts on behalf of his people that he has personally seen; how He strengthened his grandfather Jotham because of his faithfulness (then with pain he remembers how low his father Ahaz brought Judah through his false worship; his grief and the determination in his heart to purge the land of demon-worship as soon as Jehovah gave him the power); how the day finally came when Jehovah used him to restore His true, pure worship throughout the land. The realization that ever since then proper worship of Jehovah has been carried on in his kingdom in an orderly, enthusiastic way gives Hezekiah great peace of mind. He knows that he has sought his God with all his heart and that He has prospered every work that he has begun in the interests of God’s temple, his law and his commandments, keeping him and his kingdom free while Ephraim and Manasseh have fallen to Assyria (740 B.C.) “because they obeyed not the voice of Jehovah their God, but transgressed his covenant, even all that Moses the servant of Jehovah commanded, and would not hear it, nor do it.” Jehovah has smitten the Philistines before him and he has completely conquered Philistia as far as Gaza.—2 Ki. 18:4-12, Am. Stan. Ver.; 2 Chron. 29: 3-32: 3; Psalms 33 and 122; Isa. 22:15-25.

As he hears his princes and leading men approach he silently thanks Jehovah for all his blessings and protection and confidently asks his direction and protection in the present emergency. When they are gathered they prayerfully consider the Assyrian threat. The decision is that a tunnel be cut to bring into the city the water from Gihon spring which is outside the city and that the outside springs be covered over. The people enthusiastically co-operate, shouting, “Why should the kings of Assyria come, and find much water?” Hezekiah takes courage and builds up any part of the city wall in need of repair, builds towers on the wall, and rears another wall outside. He strengthens the citadel in the city of David and makes weapons and shields in great quantity.—2 Chron. 32:2-6, Am. Stan. Ver.

While all this preparation is going on, reports keep coming in to Hezekiah of Sennacherib’s southward advance toward Jerusalem. All the dominion of Tyre has surrendered to him. While Sennacherib is stationed at Hosah on the mainland opposite insular Tyre, the rulers of Shimron-meron, Zidon, Arvad, Gebal, Ashdod, Ammon, Moab and Edom rush there to present their tribute and kiss his feet. Then Sennacherib crosses over to the plain of Sharon and through it to northern Philistia where he takes the towns of Beth-dagon, Joppa, Bene-berak and Azor. Then he goes up to Aiath in the highlands north of Jerusalem and takes Migron, just about six miles north-northeast of Jerusalem. At Michmash he is storing his baggage; now they have crossed the gorge, they are lodging at Geba; Ramah trembles, Gibeah is in flight, Madmenah (less than three miles north of Jerusalem) is running away; the inhabitants of Gebim just outside Jerusalem to the north are scurrying into the capital for safety. The enemy has reached Nob on the ridge less than a mile north of the temple. There Sennacherib is shaking his fist at Jerusalem.—Isa. 10: 28-32.

Then Hezekiah, appointing captains of war over the people, gathers them to him in the open space at the gate of the city and speaks reassuringly, saying: “Be strong and of good courage, be not afraid nor dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with him; for there is a greater with us than with him: with him is an arm of flesh; but with us is Jehovah our God to help us, and to fight our battles.” (2 Chron. 32:6-8, Am. Stan. Ver.) Hezekiah is pleased to hear the expressions of the people, showing they trust in Jehovah. Encouraged, Hezekiah and the people await Rabshakeh’s next move. After staying at Nob that day, Sennacherib withdraws.

The next report Hezekiah receives tells of Ekron’s having feared Sennacherib’s advance and having sent to Egypt for help; of the Egyptian armies under Tirhaka king of Ethiopia and nephew of Egypt’s Pharaoh as having come and drawn up in battle array in the environs of Eltekeh, about 22 miles west of Jerusalem; of Sennacherib’s defeating them and taking Eltekeh and then advancing southeast about six miles and taking Timnath; of going back to Ekron and taking possession of it; of Sennacherib’s reducing the rest of Philistia and marching up to Lachish and laying siege to it. Part of the Assyrian army is raiding towns of Judah and causing much suffering.

At that Hezekiah sends word to Sennacherib at Lachish, admitting that he has offended the Assyrian monarch, and adding, “Withdraw, and I will pay any fine you choose to inflict?’ Messengers return with the information that Sennacherib has fixed the fine at 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold. Hezekiah pays it and awaits Sennacherib’s withdrawal and the end of the people’s suffering. —2 Ki. 18:14-16, Moff.

Hezekiah is surprised to see a large Assyrian army approach Jerusalem and encamp before it. He is informed that three Assyrian officers, one of them, the Rabshakeh or field marshal, a renegade Jew, are stationed on the road below the citadel and are calling for the king. Hezekiah sends out three of his own officials to them, and instructs the rest of the people to keep silent. When his officials return he sees they have torn their own garments and are in anguish. They report to the king the arrogant Assyrian demand of surrender and insults to Jehovah and His servants. As soon as Hezekiah hears it, he tears his own garments, and sends his three officials to the prophet Isaiah, instructing them to say to him: “This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of contumely; for the children are come to birth, and there is not strength to bring forth. It may be Jehovah thy God will hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master hath sent to defy the living God, and will rebuke the words which Jehovah thy God hath heard: wherefore lift up thy prayer for the remnant that is left.’’ Hezekiah then puts on sackcloth and goes to the temple of Jehovah. When he leaves the temple his officers meet him with Isaiah’s answer: “Thus saith Jehovah, Be not afraid of the words that thou hast heard, wherewith the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Behold, I will put a spirit in him, and he shall hear tidings, and shall return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.” —2 Ki. 18:17-19:7, Am. Stan. Ver.; Isa. 36:2-37:7; 2 Chron. 32: 9-19.

Rabshakeh withdraws from Jerusalem to Sennacherib, now at Libnah. When next messengers are sent to Jerusalem, they bring along a letter from Sennacherib. Hezekiah receives the letter from the hand of a messenger and reads it: “Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, 'Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria? You have surely heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands in completely destroying them, and will you be delivered? Did the gods of the nations which my fathers destroyed deliver them?”—2 Ki. 19:8-14, An Amer. Trans.; Isa. 37: 8-14.

Hezekiah is indignant but his trust in Jehovah is unshaken. He goes up to the temple and spreads out the letter before Jehovah and prays: "0 Jehovah, the God of Israel, that sittest above the cherubim, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast made heaven and earth. Incline thine ear, 0 Jehovah, and hear; open thine eyes, 0 Jehovah, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, wherewith he hath sent him to defy the living God. Of a truth, Jehovah, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands, and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone; therefore they have destroyed them. Now therefore, 0 Jehovah our God, save thou ‘us, I beseech thee, out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou Jehovah art God alone.”—2 Ki. 19:14-19, Am. Stan. Ver.; Isa. 37:14-20.

As he leaves the temple he meets a messenger from Isaiah who tells him that God has told the prophet that He has heard his prayer. Then he tells the king what Jehovah has spoken concerning Sennacherib. “The virgin daughter of Zion hath despised thee and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee. Whom hast thou defied and blasphemed? and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice and lifted up thine eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel. By thy messengers thou hast defied the Lord, and hast said, With the multitude of my chariots am I come up to the height of the mountains, to the innermost parts of Lebanon; and I will cut down the tall cedars thereof, and the choice fir-trees thereof; and I will enter into his farthest lodging-place, the forest of his fruitful field. I have digged and drunk strange waters, and with the sole of my feet will I dry up all the rivers of' Egypt. Hast thou not heard how I have done it long ago, and formed it of ancient times? now have I brought it to pass, that it should be thine to lay waste fortified cities into ruinous heaps. Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded; they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops, and as grain blasted before it is grown up. But I know thy sitting down, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy raging against me. Because of thy raging against me, and because thine arrogancy is come up into mine ears, therefore will I put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou earnest.”—2 Ki. 19: 20-28, Am. Stan. Ver.; Isa. 37:21-29.

Then the messenger relates Jehovah’s assurance of deliverance from Sennacherib: “He shall not come unto this city, nor shoot an arrow there, neither shall he come before it with shield, nor cast up a mound against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and he shall not come unto this city, saith Jehovah. For I will defend this city to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David’s sake.”—2 Ki. 19:29-34, Am. Stan. Ver.; Isa. 37:30-35.

Early the next morning when Hezekiah looks beyond the walls, he sees no Assyrian army marching against the city. Soon a Judean messenger appears with the news: Sennacherib had left Lachish and was besieging Libnah when he heard Tirhakah was marching against him. It was then that he had sent his blasphemous letter. But this morning 185,000 Assyrian warriors and officers were found dead in the Assyrian camp, slain by Jehovah, and Sennacherib has rushed back to Assyria.—2 Ki. 19: 35, 36; Isa. 37: 36, 37; 2 Chron. 32: 21.

“Thus Jehovah saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib the king of Assyria, and from the hand of all others, and guided them on every side.” Hezekiah’s prayer that all the kingdoms of the earth might know that Jehovah is God alone was also answered, for “many brought gifts unto Jehovah to Jerusalem, and precious things to Hezekiah king of Judah; so that he was exalted in the sight of all nations from thenceforth.” He was thus blessed and strengthened by Jehovah because “he trusted in Jehovah, the God of Israel”, and “departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which Jehovah commanded Moses”.—2 Chron. 29: 2; 32: 22-33; 2 Ki. 18: 3, 5, 6; 20:1-21, Am. Stan. Ver.; Isa. 38:1-39: 8; 1 Chron. 4: 32-43.

Hezekiah prefigured Jehovah’s King, Christ Jesus, who always trusts Jehovah and is now restoring true worship. Jehovah’s destruction of the Assyrians prefigured Jehovah’s destruction of all his enemies at the impending battle of Armageddon and his preservation of his heavenly King and kingdom, that all may know that Jehovah is God alone.

FIELD EXPERIENCES

A REAL MINISTER OF GOD AND A PRETENDED ONE

A fifteen-year-old bona fide minister of God tells us: “One day while working in my territory I knocked at the door of an ordinary-looking house and was suddenly confronted by a priest. I went ahead with the presentation of the Watchtower magazine which was a current offer. The priest asked me if I was one of Jehovah’s witnesses. When I replied I was, he asked me in, saying that he had heard and read quite a bit about us but had never had a chance to speak to one of us. The first question he asked was why we were always attacking the Catholic church. I tried to explain to him that we were not against the Catholic people but were fulfilling our commission to Jehovah by preaching the truth contained in the Bible and that these truths proved that religion was contrary to the worship of Jehovah God. He then asked if I did not know that the Catholic church was the preserver of the Bible. I asked him, if the Catholic church were the preserver of the Bible why did she have Tyndale and others tortured and killed because of their work of translating and publishing the Bible. He excused that, by saying that it happened long ago, and that the Catholic church had improved since then. Oh, then what about the 110,000 Bibles that were destroyed in 1941 in Spain by the Hierarchy? That did not look as though they were trying to preserve the Bible. He came back with the question, ‘What kind of Bibles were they?’ I told him, ‘No doubt the King James Version, as they were sent to Spain from England.’ He then said that only the Douay Version of the Bible was inspired. From my knowledge of the 'Equipped' book I explained to him that the Douay Version in itself was not inspired and was just a translation of the Bible from the Latin Vulgate by Jerome. The faithful men who wrote the original Hebrew and Greek canon were inspired but not the translators. This confused him quite a bit, and he then went to the doctrines and asked me about purgatory. I told him that we did not believe in purgatory, as it was not even mentioned in the Bible. To prove the doctrine, he quoted the text from the Maccabees. I told him that the Maccabees were not a part of the Bible canon but were of the Apocrypha, and therefore were not inspired authority. He insisted that the book was part of the Bible. Then I told him that, even if it were, it did not support the doctrine of purgatory but actually the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, and I quoted other scriptures showing the condition of the dead. He then brought up other doctrines, such as the immortality of the soul, Peter the first pope, etc. Each time I refuted his argument he would jump to another subject. I left a Watchtower magazine with him, and, as I was about to leave (we had discussed these things for more than an hour), he said: “I am sure that God will bless all you people because of your sincerity and conviction in your worship.’ ”

PREACHING ALONG THE HIGHWAYS

Wherever they are Jehovah’s ministers are always ready to declare Jehovah’s praises. Concerning a salesman whom they met while traveling in New York state two of Jehovah’s witnesses say:

“We gave him a witness as best we could and on leaving him left the book 'Equipped for Every Good Work’ with him. He seemed very much for religion, stating he lived with a Catholic priest and discussed the Bible very much. He was completely forgotten until this morning when we received a letter from him. The following is what he said:

“ I know you both will be surprised to hear from me at all and especially so since so much time has elapsed since we rode together. I’ve read up to the seventh lesson in "Equipped for Every Good Work". I told you at the time I received this book that you would probably have it returned with marginal notes and comments. Sorry, fellows, it won’t be marked at all. I’m surprised and pleased. So far I find it sound, factual and on the whole very much something I’ve been looking for in all religions. As you know, I was born a Catholic. There have been many, many things supposedly taught me that were far from satisfactory in my search for truth. I don’t believe that my life will ever be long enough to give me even a mild satisfaction in this search. These first seven chapters are the nearest non-confusing, progressive and aggressive evidence toward a definite understanding that I’ve found. When I stop to think of the number of Jehovah’s witnesses I’ve sent from my front door without a chance to speak, I feel ashamed.’ ”

GOD’S TRUTH MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD

A native of Budapest, Hungary, writes from there:

“A few booklets got into my hands which a friend of mine received from America, but she threw them out in the garbage can in her kitchen and for some reason I picked them up and brought them home. These little booklets, Choosing Riches or Ruin, Escape to the Kingdom, Warning, Hereafter, from day to day enlightened my understanding so much that for the past two weeks I can hardly sleep, for my mind is constantly on the contents of the booklets and the Bible. I find many interesting new things in these booklets which have changed my life completely. If I had found gold in my friend’s garbage can, it would not have made me as happy as those four booklets which I found.

“One of the booklets states that a lecture in printed form will be sent free to anyone for the asking. Will you please send me this lecture, because I admit that I have use for more enlightenment which will lead me to Jehovah God. My conscience dictates that I write this letter.

“Now I will close with the belief that I will not be cheated in Jehovah God’s service and that He will give me the things necessary for me to get life, which I desire.”